Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files

by Jim Butcher

  Hades’ eyebrows went up. He didn’t quite smile, but he nonetheless managed to look pleased. “A rare enough sound in my kingdom.” He nodded. “I am a guardian of an underground realm filled with terrible power, the warden of a nation-prison of shades. I am charged with protecting it, maintaining it, and seeing to it that it is used properly. I am misunderstood by most, feared by most, hated by many. I do my duty as I think best, regardless of anyone’s opinion but my own, and though my peers have neglected their charges or focused upon inconsequential trivialities in the face of larger problems, it does not change that duty—even when it causes me great pain. And I have a very large, and very good dog . . .”

  Spot’s tail thumped the side of Hades’ chair like some enormous padded baseball bat.

  “. . . whom other people sometimes consider fearsome.” He turned to me, put his wineglass down and regarded me frankly. “I believe,” he said, “that we have a great many things in common.” He rose and stood before me. Then he extended his right arm. “You are here because I wanted to take a moment to shake your hand and wish you luck.”

  I stood up, feeling a little off-balance, and offered my hand. His handshake was . . .

  You can’t shake hands with a mountain. You can’t shake hands with an earthquake. You can’t shake hands with the awful silence and absolute darkness at the bottom of the sea.

  But if you could, it might come close to what it was like to trade grips with the Lord of the Underworld, and to receive his blessing.

  “Wish me luck?” I breathed, when I could breathe properly again. “You aren’t going to help?”

  “It is not my place,” Hades said. “I wish you good fortune, and will hope that you triumph. But even if we yet lived in the age where my will could guide the course of destiny, it is not for the Lord of Death to take sides in this struggle. The fate of the weapons you have found must be decided by those who found them.”

  “But you’ve already helped me,” I said. “Just by pointing out what was going on.”

  Hades didn’t smile, but the corner of his eyes wrinkled. “All I did was ask you a few questions. Are you ready?”

  “I have one more question,” I said.

  “Mortals generally do.”

  “What will happen to Deirdre?”

  Hades drew in his breath. His face became expressionless. For a long moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “Relatively few new shades come into my realm these days. Foremost amongst them are those who perish in the gates—particularly at the Gate of Blood. She will remain in my keeping.”

  “The things she’s done,” I said quietly. “The people she’s hurt. And she gets to skate justice?”

  My host’s eyes became hard, flat, like pieces of coal.

  “This is my realm,” he said, and there was a note in his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates.

  Behind him, Spot let out a warning growl. Magnified by three throats and rumbling in that huge chest, it sounded like machinery in a slaughterhouse.

  I didn’t answer. At least I had enough brains to pull my foot out of my mouth and stop talking. I bowed my head, as meekly as I knew how.

  Hades’ voice smoothed out again, and at a gesture of his hand, Spot quieted down. “Should you survive the hour, consider your classics again, Sir Harry. And revisit the question in your thoughts.”

  I nodded, and thought of others in the Underworld. Tantalus. Sisyphus. Vultures tearing out livers, water that could be carried only in sieves, and ever-spinning wheels of fire, punishments tailored specifically to the soul in question.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen to Deirdre—but she wasn’t going to get off light.

  “I understand,” I said quietly.

  Hades nodded. “You will return to the same moment in which I slowed time,” he said, “and in the same position. Are you prepared?”

  I drew a slow, deep breath. “I guess I’d better be.”

  His eyes flickered and he gave me a brief nod, maybe of approval.

  Then black fire swallowed me again.

  Forty-two

  “If there’s any kind of device built into this thing, I can’t see it,” Valmont reported in a near whisper, and rose from behind the altar.

  I looked around a bit wildly, my eyes taking a second or three to adjust to the dimmer light. I was, just as Hades had said, right back where I’d been a few objective fractions of a second before.

  Five artifacts. Mab had promised Nicodemus that I would help him recover the Grail. She hadn’t said a damned thing about any of the others. So that meant that there were four things I could keep away from him, right here, right now. Nick hadn’t seen them yet, so he couldn’t know for certain that they were here. I had to recover them if I could, but keep them away from him at all costs. That meant getting them out of sight and splitting them up as best I could.

  But it meant more than that. It meant winning the game Mab had set up for me.

  Or, now that I thought about it, the game Mab had rigged for me. Mab had arranged to give me a target I couldn’t miss if I tried. It wasn’t a very appetizing target, but not every job I’d ever done was clean and enjoyable.

  I knew how to win the game to Mab’s satisfaction. The trick was going to be both winning the game and surviving it.

  Mentally, I went over those cards that I’d been holding close to my chest.

  Yeah. If I played them properly, I thought I had a winning hand.

  “Right,” I said quietly. I stepped up to the altar and started seizing holy objects. The placard. The crown.

  “Take these,” I said in a whisper, passing them to Valmont. “Get out of sight. Stow them in your pack if you can. Hide them somewhere else if you can’t.”

  Valmont stared at me with her eyes wide. “Why?”

  “They can’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands,” I said.

  “Dresden,” she said, “I’m in this for the money, and revenge if I get a chance at it. I’m not here for a cause.”

  I clenched my jaw for a second, and then regarded her frankly. “Anna,” I said, “when have I ever done wrong by you? I need your help. Who do you trust more to get you out of here? Nicodemus? Or me?”

  She stared at me hard for only a fraction of a second before she gave me a curt nod, and took them. She started stuffing them into her pack. She hadn’t filled even half of it with diamonds, and was able to slide them in. “Hey, is that the Shroud?”

  “This one looks older and shabbier than the one you stole from the Church,” I said, rolling up the old cloth and stuffing it into my duster’s pocket. It was thin stuff, terribly thin, and made a smaller bundle than you’d think. “Hell, maybe that investigative panel was right. Maybe the Church does have a knockoff.”

  “But I thought that one had power?” she asked.

  “It did, but not like this.” My fingers still tingled from touching the cloth. “Besides, we’re talking about the power of faith, here,” I said. “Enough people believe that the fake is really the Shroud, maybe that’s enough to make it powerful all by itself.”

  “Seems like a cheat.”

  “Don’t knock it,” I said.

  Her head snapped up, and her eyes widened. “Dresden,” Anna hissed.

  I heard footsteps approaching a couple of seconds later. My heart thudded in my chest. I managed to get the knife and slip it up the sleeve of my duster, then quietly slid the cup into the exact center of the altar. Even that brief contact was like touching a live wire. Tingles flew up my arm and set every hair of my body on end.

  I fought to suppress a full-body shudder, and about half a second later, Nicodemus appeared, trailing Michael, Hannah Ascher, and the Genoskwa. Ascher carried my staff in one hand, the lights of its runes gradually growing dimmer. She looked tired but smug, wearing one backpack that sagged with wealth and lugging a second like a too-heavy carry-on bag at the airport.

  “There,” Michael said when he spotted me. He looked relieved, and he hadn
’t, as far as I could tell, picked up anything. “Thank God.”

  I waved a hand at the group, using the gesture to let the knife fall a little deeper into my sleeve. “Over here. Found it.”

  They all came down to the stage with me. Nicodemus’s eyes were narrow with suspicion as he walked. “Dresden. You’ve found the Grail?”

  “I just had Valmont check this altar for traps, and she says it’s clear,” I said, not quite lying. “I just got done examining it myself.”

  “Why did you leave your staff back there?” Nicodemus asked, his rough voice harsh. “A distraction?”

  “Figured you guys could use it as a waypoint to find us,” I lied blatantly. I stepped aside with a little Vanna White gesture, revealing the cup, and said, “Ta-da.”

  Nicodemus stared at me hard for a second, then at the cup on the marble altar. I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he thought. Michael’s eyes went to it as well, widening.

  “That’s it?” Michael asked. “That’s really it?”

  “Thing makes my teeth buzz it’s so powerful,” I said. “Yeah, I think that’s it.” I looked at Nicodemus and said, “You’ve got your damned cup. Let’s pack up, get Grey his share, and get the hell out of here.”

  Nicodemus walked a slow circle around the altar, examining it. His shadow twisted and writhed with eagerness where it fell on the floor around him. I took a step to one side to avoid letting it fall on me, because ick.

  “I know you’ve been aching to have your hands on my staff,” I said to Ascher, as Nicodemus examined the altar for himself. I held out my hand. “But I’d rather be the one fondling my tool. Wizards are weird like that.”

  “Wow,” she said, and flashed me a grin, her face flushed, excited. “You left me nowhere to go with that one. I have nothing to add.”

  “I’m just that good,” I said.

  She tossed the staff back to me, imprecisely, and I fumbled it for a second and nearly dropped it. I had a hell of a time both catching it in my right hand and keeping my left arm bent enough to keep the knife from slipping out of my sleeve.

  And the brass hilt of the knife clicked against the aluminum splint still on my left arm.

  Nicodemus looked up sharply at the sound.

  His eyes stayed on me, dark and opaque for a moment.

  “Miss Valmont,” he said quietly. “Go back to the entrance. Stand watch there and tell Grey he’s free to collect his share.”

  Valmont hesitated, looking at me.

  She was a liability here. If I could get her clear, it would be harder for Nicodemus to use her against me. Also, the more I could spread these artifacts out, the better.

  I nodded, and Valmont vanished silently toward the entrance to the vault.

  Michael came to stand next to me, and abruptly tilted his head, looking up at the statues. “Harry,” he asked, “does that statue look like Molly to you?”

  Oh, crap. I so didn’t need this kind of thing distracting either of us right now.

  “Pffffft,” I said. “What? No. That’s absurd. Maybe a little. Some people might think so. She’s got, uh, one of those faces.”

  He pursed his lips and eyed me.

  “Would you get your head in the game?” I said. “Trapped in the Underworld, possible epic Greek menace all around us? Focus, please.”

  Michael eyed me.

  Dammit, I so didn’t need this right now. Anna had, by now, gotten well out of the way. For the next few moments, Grey might be distracted with collecting his share, leaving Nick and the Genoskwa against me and Michael.

  I’d take that fight.

  But where would Hannah Ascher come down? Whichever side she chose would have the advantage, and that was that. Ascher liked me, on the one hand. But on the other, Nicodemus had saved her life against the Salamander, and she had signed on to be a part of his crew, not mine. If she held to Binder’s mercenary code, she’d back Nick’s play and not mine. I racked my brains for anything I could do to get her to come down on my side, at this point. But I had nothing.

  Man.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have rejected her advances. Especially not if she’d already been feeling the rejection from Binder. Maybe that would have made a serious difference.

  On the other hand, who knows? It had been a while for me. Maybe that would have hurt my chances even more.

  Something nagged at the back of my brain, an instinct that was attached to Ascher but too vague to make any sense out of.

  The moment was passing, when Nicodemus was at the height of his tension and uncertainty. If I didn’t hurry, I was going to lose it. Time to start pushing.

  “Would you hurry it up?” I said to Nicodemus. “I don’t want to get eaten by a three-headed dog or maybe bump into the shade of Medusa because you went into gloat-mode like every Evil Overlord shouldn’t. I told you we already checked it.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Nicodemus said, going back to his examination, “I’m going to make certain for myself.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, you can’t be serious,” I said. “Mab is a tricksy bitch, but she’s good to her word. She gave you her word that I would help you secure the cup and bring it back as long as you didn’t get up to any shenanigans, and that’s what I’m going to do. It’s safe. Stick a needle in my eye.”

  Nicodemus continued in his slow circle.

  “You get all cautious now?” I asked him. And I shifted my staff into the crook of my left arm and plucked up the Grail.

  Nicodemus’s hand went to his sword, and his eyes narrowed, but I just held it speculatively, bouncing it in my hand. “See? No traps. It’s not an Indiana Jones movie, man.”

  Nicodemus remained there, frozen—but his shadow exploded back across the amphitheater stage and climbed halfway up the rear arch of the seating, its edges flaring out wildly, like a monstrous cobra. As tells go, that seemed like a pretty damned big one.

  My stomach turned as I began to speak, but I didn’t let that show in my voice. “This is what you came for, right?” I said quietly. “What your daughter died to give you. Hey, if I dropped it, do you think it would break?”

  “Dresden,” Nicodemus said. There was no silk in his voice now—only rasp.

  “Gravity seems a little higher here,” I said. “You notice? Maybe exactly high enough to break something like this if it fell. And then she’d have died for nothing.”

  “Give me the Grail,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Now.”

  “Sure. Come get it,” I said.

  He started stalking around the altar toward me, and I casually mirrored him, keeping it between us. “Deirdre talked to me about your relationship yesterday,” I said. “Did you know that?”

  He swallowed. His shadow shifted, surging toward me, spreading out in a large circle around us. The light from the upraised hands of the two triple statues grew a little dimmer. It was like suddenly being enfolded in enormous, shadowy wings.

  “She went on about the centuries you two had spent together,” I said carelessly. “About how there was no word for how close you two had become because no mortal could possibly understand. Hell, I guess that’s true. Because you threw her away like she was so much trash. I don’t have a word that seems sufficient to cover a father who would do that.”

  At that, Nicodemus went still again. “Give me the Grail,” he whispered. “And shut your ignorant mouth.”

  “You said she was the only one you trusted, back where you murdered her,” I continued in a conversational tone, putting a little emphasis on the verbs. “Call me crazy, but it seems to me that it’s going to be a long, cold, empty place for you for the next few millennia. I mean, talk about having an empty nest. That Coin in your pocket must feel pretty heavy right about now.”

  Nicodemus began to breathe faster.

  He was thousands of years old. He was a villain who had forgotten more victims than the most wildly successful serial killer ever claimed. I had no doubt that he’d killed men for much less reason than I was currently offering
him. He was skilled in every form of the infliction of damage and death that the world had to offer. He was the most personally dangerous foe I’d ever faced.

  But somewhere, deep inside the monster, was something that was still almost human. Something that could feel loss. Something that could feel pain.

  And because of that, he was furious.

  And he was beginning to lose control.

  This, I thought, is just about your best plan ever, Harry.

  “That must have been really difficult for someone so used to wielding power,” I said. “To realize that as a result of the life you’d led, there was no one who would willingly come with you, willingly let you slaughter them, willingly pull that lever for you after you had. I’ll bet you chewed that problem for years, trying to crack it. Did it hurt when you realized what you were going to have to give up?”

  Nicodemus’s chest started heaving, and his eyes got wider.

  In my peripheral vision, I could see Michael standing with his sword at port arms, his eyes cast slightly to one side, focused on nothing. The Genoskwa loomed behind him. I saw Michael ripple the fingers of his right hand into a fighting grip on Amoracchius, and take a slow, centering breath.

  “The funny part is that bit about her being protected from Hell,” I said. “You brought her here and expected that she wouldn’t get her sentence? Have you read Greek mythology? Do you know the kinds of things Hades sentences people to endure? At least Hell is, by all reports, more or less nondiscriminatory. Down here, they get personal. Did you just try to give her a comforting lie at the last minute? Just to make sure she pulled the lever?”

  Nicodemus’s sword sprang into his hand. “Give me the Grail or I’m going to kill you.”

  Hell’s bells. I was hurting him.

  I considered the Grail and felt bad for what I was doing, and I didn’t hesitate or slow down for a second. There are weapons that have nothing to do with steel or explosions or vast arcane power, and I used mine. “Do you remember?” I asked in a very quiet voice. “The first time you saw her? The first time she looked at you? Do you remember that change? That shift, when the whole universe suddenly tilted? Do you remember looking at her and knowing that you would never, ever be quite the same person? Do you think the cup will do that for you?”